For Janice
Rachel Wielgopolski
Your mailbox is full of condolence letters
for your sons
and unpaid bills…
polka dot wellies
Emma Casey
You’re disappointed in me—
drooped mouth, mute eyes—
but you hide it well….
under fluorescent lighting
Emma Casey
It’s getting a call at 2 AM that I remember.
A parking valet looking at my stick-shift like it’s
a spaceship…
embrace
Nicholas Goodwin
I’m trapped in a black tube, eyes darting left to right (at least what I think is left to right)
My eyes have betrayed me, my mind left to guide me out of the impenetrable darkness…
Ode to an Empty Seat
Rachel Wielgopolski
A party of seven gets
Seated at a table for eight….
Real women do it all
Homecoming queen, playin’ in the band
Raisin’ kids, raisin’ corn
Two steppin’ with her beau…
Real women
Kim Adamson
am.a.teur
Late 18th century: from Italian amatore, from Latin amator ‘lover,’ from amare ‘to love”…
amateur poems
Kimberly Schleder
Paint me like a feminist
With unshaved legs
Who kisses other women who hate men…
a millennial’s manifesto
Brittany Fontoura
What starts in chaos
Ends in chaos
That's what they all say
Like barbed wire teeth…
Chaos
Pamela Snure
The daughter with the well-kept hair,
The daughter with the great sense of style,
The daughter with the acne free face…
expectations
Andrea Abdale
That feeling in my stomach
That solid hollow feeling
I feel you in there, my deserted gift…
fortitude
Tamara Drake
(I) Waxing Crescent
There was a woman unwell,
the housemaids would tell,
her toes and fingertips…
Hysteria
Kimberly Schleder
If Portland was my boyfriend
He would wake me up every morning with a cup of coffee
That I would love even if it was too strong…
if portland was my boyfriend
Jamie Kahn
the rose-and-lily scent of her garden eyes calls to me
like the sight of a freshly fading rainbow after a storm.
I ache for her soft-spoken hand in mine again…
mikaela
Rachel Wielgopolski
The color of love is gray
not the silver-gray like the moon
or wispy gray clouds before a storm…
Love
Rachel Wielgopolski
I let you go
as the shutter
clicked. Your breath…
Polaroid love
Juliana Wall
In a darkened attic with silhouetted light
A puppet finds a lonely chest
In the chest, a silken dress…
puppet’s dress
Tamara Drake
Coat the walls with eggshell white
watch it drip onto the carpet.
more paint.
wash everything…
remodeling
Katriel Chehade
Bees have no concept of June
during March’s final frosts.
Biting breezes, frozen mud
leech lifeblood from the moss…
the rite of spring
Kimberly Schleder
see the words
on your phone
through stinging, blurry eyes…
breakup landmarks
Rachel Wielgopolski
She came from a dust-covered land.
Scarlet lips drip noxious elixirs into young ears.
Reviving oppressed areas of men’s brains…
Sister sin
Amanda Connell
you can feed your future without starving your past
you do not need to dig the roots up from the soil that you were once planted from
accept that the soil provided for you…
How Seeds Grow
Hope Wolbach